Dickens
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This time he would have a reliable business companion to accompany him. George Dolby, an experienced theatrical agent and the brother of the well-known singer Madame Santon Dolby, had initially been employed by the Chappells as their representative. Brawny, balding, cigar-smoking, with a wide moustache and a huge waist, the worshiping Dolby deserved his reputation for efficiency, competence, and insensitive toughness in dealing with business matters. Not even his habitual stutter, forcing “him to become suddenly stately in the middle of a homely phrase and to give a queer intonation to his voice,” detracted from his effectiveness.9 He quickly became confidant, protector, and essential companion. Nurturing and protecting his frail, often exhausted, and frequently depressed “Chief,” he more than earned his 10 percent commission, which the Chappells paid. Everywhere that Dickens read in 1866–67 Dolby went also, attending to the safety of the props, providing sandwiches, protection, and security, seizing, securing, and counting the receipts each night, dealing with business problems on the spot, worrying about his health during the performances, checking from his next-door room on whether the exhausted and often ill performer was having another of his sleepless nights.
On the face of it, Dickens carefully deliberated the decision to go to America; but much of the rational process, including considerations of health, was superfluous. The balance sheet dominated his thinking. When Fields in April 1866 queried him, he responded that he would need a very substantial financial incentive to commit himself to the wear and tear when he had merely to say yes to the Chappells “to pluck fruit that grows on every bough at home.” He would put no price on “fifty readings in America, because I do not know that any possible price could pay me for them. And I really cannot say to anyone disposed towards the enterprise, ‘Tempt me,’ because I have too strong a misgiving that he cannot in the nature of things do it.… The chances are a thousand to one that the answer will be no.” A direct no would have ended the matter. In effect, his response challenged Fields to tempt him sufficiently. The Bostonian of course took up the challenge. One of the important unmentioned obstacles to the “very large proposal from America” was that he could not “bear the thought of the distance and the absence” from Ellen. The temptation and its difficulties were much on his mind during the summer of 1866. In mid-October, he wrote to Fields that “a faint outline of a castle in the air always dimly hovers between me and Rochester, in the great hall of which I see myself reading to American audiences. But my domestic surroundings must change before the castle takes tangible form. And perhaps I may change first, and establish a castle in the other world.”
After working his way into exhaustion through his series of fifty readings, he was ready again in May 1867 to return to the American temptation. “On behalf of a committee of private gentlemen at Boston,” Fields guaranteed ten thousand pounds to be banked in London. American speculators besieged Dolby and the Chappells. If there was a time to go, it was soon, while the fever was strong, for the Americans, he believed, “are a people whom a fancy does not hold long.… They are bent upon my reading there, and they believe (on no foundation whatever) that I am going to read there. If I ever go, the time would be when the Christmas number goes to press. Early in this next November.” The qualification that it was “on no foundation” was partly for Forster, who strongly opposed the trip, partly momentary self-deceit. “It is possible,” he admitted, “that I may enter into some extensive ‘Reading’ engagements as the winter begins, though I cannot at present decide … and in the meantime the impending possibility obscures my whole prospect.” In June, he told Fields that he was “trying HARD” to free himself so “as to be able to come over to read this next winter!” In the meantime, “don’t contradict the rumour.” That might cause confusion and affect the success of the readings. For “no light obstacles will turn me aside, now that my hand is in.”10
Wills, and Forster particularly, opposed the venture, the former because of the potential damage to Dickens’ health, the latter because he also believed the readings incompatible with the dignity of literature. Others, like Carlyle, muttered quietly about intemperate greediness. Procter felt sorry that he was “expatriating himself,” though he would be “very glad if he come back safe—and brings a heavy bag full of American coin—No paper.” Concerned friends in New York sent “letters about Danger, Anti-Dickens feeling, Anti-English feeling,” and “New York rowdyism.” As for “the patient,” Dickens acknowledged to Wills that his desire not to be separated from her was “the gigantic difficulty. But you know I don’t like to give in before a difficulty, if it can be beaten.” He proposed bringing her with him. He would read in America on his own account, without benefit of the Chappells or any intermediary. The generally agreed on estimate of ten thousand pounds’ profit was conservative. He could easily make that sum even with restricting himself to the large cities of the East Coast to lessen the strain of travel. His visit would help the sales of the collected edition of his works. His “exceptional faculty of accumulating young feelings in short pauses, which obliterates a quantity of wear and tear,” would protect his health. He even felt comfortable arguing from the premise that though “my worldly circumstances are very good” and “I don’t want money, for all my possessions are free, and in the best order … still, at 55 or 56, the likelihood of making a very great addition to one’s capital in half a year, is an immense consideration.”11 Though he easily outargued Wills and Forster, it did not matter anyway. He had made up his mind to go.
For his own protection and expecting conclusive justification, he sent Dolby to America to provide an expert analysis of the facts and figures. Unhappily, just before his manager’s departure at the beginning of August, Dickens’ left foot became swollen and inflamed again. There are “so many reasons against supposing it to be gouty,” he insisted, “that I do not really think it is.” He could not get his boot on, let alone walk, the pain so intense that he went to see a specialist as soon as he returned from Liverpool to London. Dr. Henry Thompson diagnosed it as the result of “pressure on a bone received in much walking and engendering a tendency to inflammation.” In great pain, immediately consigned to complete rest on the sofa at the office, he wrote to Dolby to assure him that “the cause of all the annoyance is the action of the boot on an unidentified part of a bone,” which had developed into “erysipelas in the foot,” an infection of the skin and subcutaneous tissue. (Dolby diagnosed America with equal optimism, though with sounder justification.) At home, Dickens did everything possible to stifle the rumor that he was seriously ill, though he remained lame for almost two months. He still claimed in the middle of September that he had “not the least idea whether I am going to America or not,” though “everybody else seems to know all about it.”12 He would decide when his manager returned.
That was only technically true. Later in the month he lied to Kent, urging him to contradict rumors, to tell people that “I never was better in my life—doubt if anybody ever was or can be better—and have not had anything the matter with me but a squeezed boot, which was an affair of a few days.” The rumors spread persistently, by word of mouth and in newspapers. “The undersigned innocent victim,” he insisted, “is NOT in a critical state of health, and has NOT consulted eminent surgeons and … has not had so much as a head ache for twenty year.” Apparently he found it humorous, when Charles Reade, the popular novelist, and Wilkie Collins visited Gad’s Hill, that “the joke of the time is to feel my pulse when I appear at table.” He drew up a precise statement of “the case in a nutshell” for Wills’s and Forster’s responses. As a business document, it was completely sound. But it did not mention his physical and emotional health. Toward the end of the month, he seemed to Collins, as they worked on the Christmas number, to be “greatly harassed about finally deciding on the American tour. On Monday next, he must definitely decide—Yes, or No.” The next day he told Kent that the telegram would go out on the twenty-eighth. “Solar System shall be apprized immediately afterwards.” He w
ent to Ross-on-Wye, where Dolby lived, and where the Forsters were vacationing, for a final conference. The main point was clear to him. “I cannot set the hope of a large sum of money aside.”13 He listened to Forster’s objections, and then sent the telegram.
DESPITE DICKENS’ EXHILARATION AT THE BRILLIANCE OF THE BAN- quet, he was depressed and restless for the month preceding his departure, not “in very brilliant spirits at the prospect” before him, the fatigue of the journey, the absence from loved ones. He miswrote and blotted the last word of the phrase “your affectionate Father—I can’t write the word”—in an explanatory letter to Henry about not being able “to neglect so promising a prospect of being so handsomely remunerated for hard work.” He was uneasy about what awaited him. Notwithstanding his frequent persuasions to the contrary, he did know that his health was fragile, that the “puny, weak youngster” with “violent spasmodic attacks” had been reincarnated as a sickly elderly man. He ordered a small medicine chest to be provisioned for the venture with what he usually carried on tour “for neuralgic touches, namely Laudanum—Ether—Sal Volatile,” and a form of digitalis for the heart. In the middle of October, Wills and Collins were prowling around at Gad’s Hill “with their hands in their pockets,” while he, prowling around in his mind, wrote a letter to Dolby, who had gone again to America to make the final arrangements. Fechter stuck his head in—”Pough Bang he dies!” He felt “in the pause as if [he] were not in England, not in Europe; not in America, Africa, or Asia,” but nowhere, between two worlds, on the edge of a kind of extinction.14 The possibility that he might not return occurred to him, though he held it at a distance.
He still hoped to have Ellen join him. Having charged Dolby on this second trip to consult with the Fieldses, both of whom knew about her, and to get his and their opinion about whether it would be safe to have her come, he was “quite prepared for your great Atlantic-cable-message being adverse.… I think it so likely that Fields may see shadows of danger which we in our hopeful encouragement of one another may have made light of, that I think the message far more likely to be No than Yes. I shall try to make up my mind to it, and to be myself when we meet.” He provided Forster “general and ample Power of Attorney” and wrote detailed business memos for Wills, who would handle most daily matters while he was gone. Mary and Georgina were given access to his checking account to pay Gad’s Hill expenses. Ouvry was to send Catherine her money. All letters to him, whether addressed to Gad’s Hill or to the office, were to be opened only by Wills. Letters to Ellen that he sent to Wills, whose responsibilities may also have included paying any obligations connected with Ellen, probably at least the quarterly taxes on Windsor Lodge, were to be hand-delivered or forwarded discreetly.
Unfortunately, the telegram from Dolby was not determinative either way. He immediately worked out a code that would signal, soon after his arrival in Boston, whether or not he would risk her joining him. “Tel: all well means you come. Tel: safe and well, means you don’t come.” Wills was to forward the message to Ellen in Florence, where she would be staying with her sister at Villa Trollope. There was to be no mistake in his carrying out his instructions. “If she needs any help … NELLY … will come to you, or if she changes her address, you will immediately let me know.… On the day after my arrival out I will send you a short telegram at the office. Please copy its exact words … and post them to her … by the very next post.… And also let Gad’s Hill know—what the telegram is.…” And also Forster, who “knows Nelly as you do, and will do anything for her if you want anything done.”15
Tossed again by heavy Atlantic seas, Dickens made his second crossing from Liverpool to Boston, this time on the Cunard steamer Cuba. He had an officer’s cabin on deck “big enough for everything but getting up in and going to bed in.” Mamie, Katie, Wilkie, Kent, and Yates saw the voyager off. As usual, he refused to say good-bye, and found circumlocutions to avoid the pain and bad luck. This was not good-bye. It was not even his farewell to the stage. When the ship left Liverpool in bright calm weather on November 8, 1867, he already had arranged another reading tour. The Chappells had accepted his proposal that on his return he do a series of seventy-five “farewell readings in town and country,” for which they would cover all expenses and commissions and pay him six thousand pounds. On shipboard, the popular celebrity was treated to the captain’s right hand and to the adulation of the mostly American passengers. Believing that they did wonders in preventing seasickness, he began to eat baked apples frequently. Finding the dining room stuffy, he often dined in his small airy cabin, where he had a miniature writing desk, and read constantly. Halfway out a heavy gale sprang up, the ship rolling and plunging. It became impossible to pass a teacup from one pair of hands to another or to write. “My heels [are] on the paper as often as the pen.… My desk and I have just risen from the floor.”16 At Sunday services the tossing kept everything and everyone sliding comically. Though his foot remained sore from the episode in August, he still tried to get exercise walking on deck. Fortunately, he was not seasick at all. As the Cuba steamed down from Halifax against heavy winds, he sang and amused himself at a farewell party with the other passengers.
In Boston, expectations were high. There was an overnight queue, stretching for nearly half a mile, in front of Ticknor and Fields. The rapid sale of tickets shocked even Dolby. Every seat for the first four readings sold in a little over eleven hours with receipts of fourteen thousand dollars, or two thousand pounds. For the Bostonians it was simultaneously a theatrical, a social, and a cultural event. The most famous literary man in a world in which the printed word was king and the only royalty available again and at last was coming to the city that defined itself as the cultural capital of America. For Dickens, Boston was “his American home … all his literary friends lived there.” On the eighteenth a telegram from Halifax claimed that the Cuba would arrive the next day, “with Mr. Dickens on board.” When Dolby read it to the crowd waiting for tickets, standing on long lines in frigid weather, the first sign of what proved to be an unusually hard winter, “there was a terrific furore,” some of which expressed the greed of speculators who were attempting to buy as many as possible to resell for profit.
Accepting an offer to meet the Cuba in a United States customs steamer, Dolby sailed through a shower of welcoming rockets and flares illumining the ship as it entered the harbor in the moonless night. As the steamer came alongside, Dickens called down from the deck, having anticipated that Dolby would pick him up “from a pilot boat, or some other impossible place between Halifax and Boston.” Soon he was warmly embracing Dolby and Fields. Evading the crowds at the wharf, they made their way into the Parker House Hotel, where “all the notabilities of Boston” had gathered to greet him. He seemed to Fields to be in excellent health and spirits. Finally, he ascended to his apartment, high up in a quiet corner, with “a hot and cold bath in his bedroom,” for rest, food, “the old brew of punch and a cigar,” and some private moments with Dolby. Annie Fields had decorated the rooms with bright flowers. While he ate, people frequently looked in through the doors the waiters left open, reminding him of how he had been exhibited like an animal on his previous visit. He felt peevish, fatigued, and suddenly “very depressed in spirits.”17 But he had a little more than ten days to refresh himself before the readings were to start.
The ten days proved an irritant. More than anything, he wanted to get the readings done and return to England. It became clear to him immediately that in this inconsistently moralistic world neither his cultural image nor the available conditions of limited privacy could withstand Ellen’s arrival. “All New England is primitive and puritanical. All about and around it is a puddle of mixed human mud with no real quality in it,” though it was “a good sign maybe, that it all seems immensely more difficult to understand than it was when I was here before.” His pessimism had been sound, his caution the preliminary to inevitable disappointment. Two days after arriving he telegraphed to Wills, SAFE AND WELL EXPECT GOOD LETTER F
ULL OF HOPE. Soon he had a telegram back through Fields. The next week he was “yearning already for spring and home.”18 Characteristically impatient, he found waiting more stressful than acting. Incapable of sitting still, his delight in his Boston friends and his interest in the changes in American culture kept him constantly active. The day after his arrival, Henry Wads-worth Longfellow, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Oliver Wendell Holmes, and Louis Agassiz called on him. The next day the elite of Boston literary society gathered at Fields’s Charles Street home for a welcoming dinner party.
There were striking absences and changes. The much-loved Cornelius Felton was dead. So too was Nathaniel Hawthorne. Though the Civil War had taken its toll, Dickens seemed to notice that much less than natural causes and ordinary time. A brilliant scientist and professor, Agassiz was “the most natural and jovial of men.” Annie Fields feared that Holmes, “so simple and lovely,” bored him by talking at him. Dickens particularly liked the young writer and scholar Charles Eliot Norton. Having turned “perfectly white in hair and beard, but a remarkably handsome and notable-looking man,” Longfellow greeted him warmly, happy to “see [him] again after so many years, with the same sweetness and flavor as of old, and only greater ripeness.” Emerson had a more reflective response, later telling Annie Fields that “I am afraid he has too much talent for his genius; it is a fearful locomotive to which he is bound and can never be free from it nor set at rest. You see him quite wrong; and would persuade me that he is a genial creature, full of sweetness and amenities and superior to his talents, but I fear he is harnessed to them. He is too consummate an artist to have a thread of nature left.” With Fields, Dickens took long walks every day, one of them to Cambridge, where he dined with Longfellow again in “his old house, where his beautiful wife was burned to death.” Dickens, who told funny stories and did his “irresistible imitation” of Carlyle, could not get out of his mind the vivid image of her being “in a blaze in an instant” and rushing “into his arms with a wild cry.”19